A Little Bit Richer

Speaker 1: This series is bought to you by L&G, helping you build a future that's a little bit richer.

Iona Bain: Hello, I'm Iona Bain, and welcome to A Little Bit Richer, brought to you by Legal & General. Now, as we're in the thick of the festive season, I thought we'd do something a wee bit different, and dare I say, a wee bit Christmasy. Today, we're diving into the 12 financial days of Christmas. Yep. 12 quick, simple, feel-good money tips that we've learned on the show this year to help you finish the year strong and set yourself up for an even better one in 2026. No partridges, no pear trees, just practical bite- sized ideas you can actually use from the guests we've had on the show. So whether you're wrapping gifts, traveling home, or hiding from your in laws with a pair of headphones, we've all been there. Let's jump into day one. First up is financial advisor and content creator, Rotimi Merriman-Johnson, who shared some great insights on building your investment portfolio. I particularly loved his tip around the importance of diversifying.

Rotimi Merriman-Johnson: So diversification in simple terms means not putting all your eggs in one basket. And the reason why we do this is because different companies will go through different cycles and will perform differently at different times. And rather than have a scenario where you're just invested into one company and you're hoping that that company does well, you build what's called a portfolio of companies. You can do this yourself or you can use a fund. So if you pick the right stock, then you can do really well off the back of it, potentially. But it also means that if the company doesn't do so well, your investment can go to zero. If you were using an index fund that tracked the UK stock market, the FTSE 100, you would have 100 companies in that fund. So, for your money to go to zero, it would require a hundred companies to go to zero, which I think if that's happened, we have bigger problems to worry about.

Iona Bain: Yes. Our second tip comes from Helen Tupper, author of The Squiggly Career and co- founder of Amazing If. Helen was full of practical advice, and here she is talking about how to tackle the fear of failure when making a career change.

Helen Tupper: So there's this fear- based response to change. And then there is a very practical one of, " No, but what if I don't enjoy it?"

Iona Bain: Yes.

Helen Tupper: It's not a fear. It's a real thing. What if I am not good at it? I've not done this before. So I think there are two different things to work on here. So the first one is caging confidence, (inaudible) , and the second one is sort of trying to get some exposure and experience before you kind of make that move so that you mitigate the risk of it going wrong. A lot of that is moving from sort of limiting beliefs like, " What if people don't like me in that team? If I fail, I'm going to be a failure." All these kind of statements that go around our head to more limitless thinking. So when I say limitless beliefs, all I'm saying is change the story. So not, " Well, if I do it and I fail, then everyone's going to think I'm a failure." More, " Well, if I do it and I fail, at least I'm going to learn."

Iona Bain: On our third day of Christmas, let's look at pensions and the power behind them. Here I talk to L&G's Pete Gladwell, all about how your pension savings can be invested to help build better communities, doing stuff for the greater good. That sounds pretty Christmasy to me.

Pete Gladwell: Your pension does have a power. It can have real impact. It is worth thinking about who you're entrusting your pension pot to, because it might feel like a small amount to you, but when it's combined with millions of other people's pensions, it starts to be a game changing, a town changing, a city, changing a country changing amount of money.

Iona Bain: Oh, I like that. That's great.

Pete Gladwell: It's true. I mean, you're talking about serious amounts of money. So think about the impact and the provider that you're entrusting your pensions and savings to. That's the first thing. But again, you've got the power to change the industry. Where people put their pensions is what the industry then moves to accommodate. So if you have lots of people telling their providers, " I don't want to be invested in these sectors and I really care about these things," then providers like Legal & General and others will start to create funds for you to invest in those. So even within your choice, you can affect what the industry does in future and affect that trend in the industry towards being more considerate of the environmental and social impact of the billions of pounds of money that we steward.

Iona Bain: Next up on our list is accountant, campaigner, and speaker, Krystal  McGilvery, who joined me to talk about neurodiversity and money. Here she is talking about strategies to put in place to manage debt. And I think that's something we can all learn a lot from.

Krystal  McGilvery: First of all, I'd say stop, pause, breathe, and know that you can get through. And I think second, just take an audit, note down, " Okay, this is what I have here. These are the terms and conditions here." And then it's slowly working your way through various different methods, a kind of avalanche and snowball method, and it can be quite fun actually, as you watch that journey of your debt reducing and know that you have done that, once you're on that journey, the progress that you make then becomes very self- motivating.

Iona Bain: 100%. But you have to start that journey in the first place.

Krystal  McGilvery: You have to start. Yeah. And even starting with five pounds, because what we're doing there is we're building this new habit and that's the key. You are teaching yourself and learning and building up the confidence that I can commit to paying money to clear a debt that I have. That's you being responsible. And once you start that journey, it starts to snowball and you feel really good.

Iona Bain: That's so encouraging and heartening. Let's come to The Mortgage Mum, Sarah Tucker next, who guided us through the remortgaging process. Sarah had some great advice on checking your mortgage deal so you can make sure you're getting the best rate.

Sarah Tucker: What we see is a lot of people don't ring their bank, they don't switch the rate. They go onto what's called a standard variable rate. They pay a lot more money and they don't talk to us because they're worried. What if I talk to an advisor and then they tell me I can't have my mortgage and they take my house away? That is not going to happen. So my biggest message is go and speak to... Hopefully the advisor you used in the first place is the one to contact you six months before your rate ends and just tell them what's going on right now for you, what's happened in the last few years and let them guide you through.

Iona Bain: Yeah, because the standard variable rate is not going to be a good deal for you.

Sarah Tucker: It's not. It's the highest option out of the three. And you can be talking about hundreds of pounds a month more and so many people are on it. This is what's crazy. 1. 8 million people coming off of their fixed rate deals and there will be a huge number that do nothing. And that is a mission for us to try and get through to those people and say, " Don't do nothing because then you're just going to switch onto the variable rate."

Iona Bain: Because it's crazy, but it's a very, very understandable mistake to make whereby you just think, " Hang on a second, I've really got no choice but to do this," whereas you're making it clear, " No, it doesn't have to be like that." We're officially halfway through our 12 financial days of Christmas. And on my list next is life admin, specifically combining your pension savings into one pot. Yep, you might square them at the thought, but actually I had a really interesting chat with L&G's Mike Crossley all about this subject. He broke it down for us in easy, doable steps, and that's music to my ears. Here's Mike talking about how you can stay on top of your pensions.

Mike Crossley: If you've got three, four, five different pensions, it can be tricky to understand how much have you saved, are your savings on track to give you what might be a good income in retirement. So bringing them together can be a really positive first step towards getting on top of your retirement savings.

Iona Bain: So it's a question of not forgetting that you have pension pots and therefore being able to maximize what you have much more effectively.

Mike Crossley: Yeah. So really important not to be one of those people who's lost an old pension. And it can happen so easily. As people move house and stuff, they forget to tell their pension provider. And then when you try and remember, " What was that pension I had 5, 10 years ago," really easy to fall into that trap. So bringing them together, perhaps after you've just changed job and you've got a new pension, it's a great way of keeping on top and actually reducing your life admins, you're not then needing to tell five different pension providers each time you move.

Iona Bain: That's a very good point. Often when we are reluctant to do something in the short term, actually we're just storing up more problems for the long term. It could actually save us time in the long run. We're on day seven now, and up next is Dr. Eliza Filby. Eliza is a historian, author, and generational expert, and we had a fascinating chat about inheritance. Here she is talking about how some people can only really afford properties if they have the bank of mum and dad.

Dr. Eliza Filby: Bringing into the conversation, this bank of mum and dad. And there was a lot of shame, still is a lot of shame on that parental dependency. There's a lot of unsaid, whispered, " How did she afford that deposit," in friendship groups. There's a lot of silence in families talking about gifting, dependency, certainly about inheritance. There's a level of economic infantilization that a lot of people feel when it comes to their parents. And I think you need to be much more open, both if you're in a privileged position of having the bank of mum and dad, but also if you're not, actually creating a greater level of empathy amongst your friendship groups and saying, " Do you know what? I can't spend 2000 pounds on attending your hem party and wedding because I'm not in the position that you are." And I think talking about it in your peer groups, but also talking about it within your family and also talking about it in society.

 Because one of the things that I'm really passionate about is helping people understand the social and economic forces that actually govern their lives. And I think basically what's happened since 2008 to 2025 is that the state has shrunk, the market's become dysfunctional and the parents have stepped up. Stepped up from a point of love. And I'm not someone that believes that inheritance should be taxed into oblivion. It's about creating and having a conversation where inheritance matters less and an economy where inheritance matters less because it ultimately it’s demotivating.

Iona Bain: We're coming up next to my episode with financial advisor, Emmanuel Asuquo, and we had a great chat about side hustles. And in this clip, he talks about how you can make some extra money through passive income streams.

Emmanuel Asuquo: Passive income streams are the dream, they're like Midas' gold, they're... What we're looking for is basically... Passive income stream is where you put money into something and then it gives you an income each month, each year without you having to go back and work for it. So your money is working for you. Now, it sounds really difficult and really hard, but there are some ways that you can do this. So for example, I meet people who have a spare room. So you could rent out that room, no additional work, and every month that room, or every week, depending on how you rent it out, could be making you money. So that could be considered passively. Or you could have a car. Some people get a car and then they rent out that car. And again, they're getting income from that car every single month. So it all depends on what you're doing, but typically, I would say that most things, although they say they're passive, require work.

 Anything that you're making money from needs to be maintained and tends to need to acquire work. So one of the big ones people talk about is property. So owning a property and renting it out. But even if you rent out that property, even if you get an estate agent to manage that, there's still work to be done because they may need to be updating to the property. There may be times when the property is empty, you may need to help with the marketing. There's work to be done to really maintain that income and make sure that that grows and works on. So I'd say passive sounds amazing, but the reality is that there normally needs work to be done.

Iona Bain: We talk a lot on the show about planning for the long term and creating that future that you'll be thankful for. And with that in mind, here's financial coach and content creator, Laura Ann Moore, who gave us a genius hack on how to trick your brain into saving.

Laura Ann Moore: So I'm not a massive fan of no spend months.

Iona Bain: Yeah, that feels very restrictive.

Laura Ann Moore: So restrictive. Where's the fun?

Iona Bain: No.

Laura Ann Moore: But no spend zones would be, " Okay, where are my biggest triggers with overspending? Where do I spend when I look back and go, 'Oh, really wish I hadn't done that?'" They're the places that you would put a bit more of a rule around. For example, if your weakness is after work, tired, can't be arsed to cook, you know you're going to be getting a Deliveroo, afterwards you're like, " Oh, I could have probably even made that for half the price." So if you know that's your trigger, you would say, " Okay, I am going to maybe do no Deliveroos during the week." Or you can step foot outside in London and before you know it, you've spent 100 pounds. So maybe you say, " Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I don't spend before 12: 00 PM." Just zones of the day, of the week, where you just make an active choice to not spend as much, therefore allowing you to save a bit more.

Iona Bain: We're on to day 10 now. I'm going to chat about relationships because when they go from the fun and frolics of dating to having those difficult conversations about your future together, let's face it, you've got to be honest and transparent. So here's financial advisor Bola Sol on how to have that tricky chat.

Bola Sol: Their response is incredibly important. So whatever the situation may be when you bring up finances, are they short with you? Are they snappy? You have to look at all those things. Are they avoidant or do they communicate with you and say, " Okay, I can do this next week and so on and so on." I think their response is very important as well. Having the conversation, even if it's not sexy. Sometimes you have to talk about the hard things and do the hard things. That's how long- term relationships work. When you hear people say, " Oh, we've been together 15 or 20 years," and everyone kind of claps by hearing that. I'm like, " I'm sure they've had a conversation or two about finances," and other things as well, relationships in different formats, friendships, professional career and so on. So I just say, just see finance as one part of that as opposed to all of it.

Iona Bain: Now our 11th tip is about a subject that doesn't exactly make our hearts race, but it is a really important one. And that's why we did not just one, but two great episodes with accountant, Tim Paul. Yep, we were talking about tax and he broke down all those technical terms that we find a bit scary and showed us that tax really isn't as daunting as we might think. Here's Tim talking through some quick wins.

Tim Paul: The first thing I would say is checking your tax code. For majority of people, this should be 1257L to reflect the personal allowance that I mentioned earlier. If your code on your payslip is anything other than 1257L and you don't know why, then immediately you want to contact your employer and get that sorted out. That'd be the first thing. The second thing I would say is there's a government app now, HMRC have an app, the government have an app. Download both because what you can do is you can go on the app and you can actually put in your details and then it can tell you what benefits and allowances you're entitled to, childcare, the child benefits, marriage allowance, those kinds of things. So it's actually a very, very good app. I've worked with the government a few times to promote it and I use it myself and it does give you all the information that you need, your national insurance contributions, how much tax you're paying, your self- assessment record, even your national insurance number, everything like that.

 So yeah, that would be the second thing, see what you can get. And then the third thing is the pensions point. Get your pension sorted. If you don't know what pots you've got where, or if you don't know how much you're contributing, if you don't know how much your employer's contributing, find that out, find out what the pension's getting invested into. Make sure that you've got that sorted because that is the quickest win in order to make sure that you're not overpaying on your taxes.

Iona Bain: It's a 12th day of Christmas. Hurrah, we made it. For our last tip, we're going out strong. We're going to hear from Claer Barrett, who I had a great discussion with on pensions versus property. Here's Claer explaining why most people prioritize one over the other.

Claer Barrett: Ask any young person at any point over the last 20 or 30 years, " Which one are you going to prioritize?" Of course it's going to be property because we want to get on the housing ladder. We've seen what house prices can do and the impact of owning an asset, which could rise in value. No guarantees, of course, that that's going to keep happening, certainly keep happening at the same rate in the future, but it's been a one- way escalator for generations past. And you can also tell your landlord to do one. I think for many people, it's that, that's the motivation, the insecurity of living in rented accommodation as well as the huge cost. Maybe you're living with your parents for longer in order to save up for a property. These are all factors that are pushing young people towards prioritizing property over retirement, which seems like a very, very distant dream.

Iona Bain: Well, that wraps up our 12 financial days of Christmas, 12 tiny tweaks that together can make a surprisingly big difference to your long- term financial health. If you try even one or two of these over the holiday break or beyond, let us know. You can get in touch with us on TikTok and Instagram @legalandgeneral. And don't forget, you can watch all our full episodes on YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it with a friend who's looking for a little festive money motivation. We'll be back on January the 1st with a book club special to get your new year off to a brilliant start. This podcast is brought to you by L&G. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and see you very soon.